Hey everybody, Dale here with another (yes I know) look at the new Sofirn C8F Triple. Tracy at Sofirn contacted me about this new revision and I bought the light at a discount on Amazon HERE
They are offering a 25% Discount to BLF users with the coupon code N6LKSTK9. With the battery charger and a really good cell, this comes out to around $34. A pretty nice deal I think.

They have upgraded the C8F to use a side e-switch and have several groups in the driver firmware that are easily selected by the end user.

They also took heed and made changes to the emitter selection and MCPCB, we now have XP-L emitters that I believe are W2 and in the 3A or 3B tint range. Tint is just slightly cooler than a 3D, power level is very capable and well received by yours truly!

Now, Barkuti has a nice review with a lot of good pics and run times and all that, so I don’t aim to bore ya to death with another albeit less qualified review like his. He might not have had the triple, or the new side switch version. So I’ll show ya some pics and then we’ll go inside and see what makes it tick! (and then what makes it tick FASTER!)

They’ve made a very nice triple reflector, used a Direct Thermal Path MCPCB (confirmed) and have what I believe to be the W2 power level of the XP-L. I say this because the emitter has a small flat on the side, not the usual large full coverage flat that won’t fit under a Carclo optic. I’ve only seen these once before and I found them to do over 2000 lumens in a full direct drive light.

Look at the emitters on the board and see the one I’m holding to the right, a normal XP-L V6 emitter…

They even supplied a charger and a cell, this time an unprotected cell (I know, the label says it’s protected but testing and questions to Tracy proved out they made an error with the printing on this label) I unwrapped it and it appears to be a Samsung 30Q, but it does better than the 30Q’s I have. Bested only by Sony in the form of the VTC4 and VTC5A in my tests.

This might also be a good time to point out that Sofirn has already done the spring bypasses for us! Yes, 22ga wire bypasses already installed at the factory! Nice touch!

Tests? Yep, I tested the light with their cell and with a couple of others to see where they all stood…

So as you can see, their driver is really working quite well! It appears to be an FET+1 design of their own, albeit with a bit more sane FET than I typically use.

They assemble this triple reflector light in the usual manner, even though it’s smaller than what we normally see done this way. This is to say, they use a screw from the middle to pull the reflector down onto the MCPCB through the emitter shelf, but they ALSO use one screw to hold the MCPCB to the reflector so it can’t twist and kill emitters. They put a recess in the emitter shelf for this screw to seat down into. Clever!

You see the two wire holes at the bottom with the recess at the top and the anchor screw in the middle…

This is all isolated with white plastic centering/isolation rings. Nicely thought out and well executed in the first C8 Triple with a metal triple cup reflector. The reflector is also well done.

Threads on the battery tube are non-anodized at the head, anodized at the tail. Heavy V shaped threads are cut flat at the point to be a good compromise between the normal fine V thread and a narrow square thread, I find these to be robust and well done.

The e-switch falls readily to thumb, well placed here as well with an interruption for the switch in the finned section of the head.

Even the laser etching is well done, a place many cheaper lights suffer noticeably…

I especially enjoyed their attention to detail when it came to the reflector itself. Look at the deep pockets cut into the bottom of the reflector to clear the wires…

I had to test those out, of course, to see if larger wires fit. 18ga SuperWorm did indeed fit and clear.

With nice threaded retaining rings and a relatively deep driver bay, the head of the light is again well done and easily accepts modification.

Something I did, indeed, embrace.

So, I applaud Sofirn with the improved and upgraded C8F triple, very nicely done and a welcome addition to the C8 style lights we know and love! Well done Sofirn!

I will elaborate a bit more on the moddability here directly…..

Thanks for checking it out, you sure can’t go wrong here, they outdid themselves with this one!

Ok, so since I was inside the light, and already sitting at my bench, what was I to do? Had to find out if 18 ga wires would fit, right? Well of course I did! And while I had the driver clamped in stats and held firmly in my vice, what better time to use my hot air station to remove their MOSFET and put mine on? So I used a Vishay SIR404DP, left everything else on the driver alone. (with 18ga leads of course)

It went together a bit more like a complex dance than before, having the larger wires and needing to screw the MCPCB to the reflector and still get the middle screw through the emitter shelf, but it was worth the effort!

I looked at output’s now, current only without taking lumens measurements.

So I charged up a Sony VTC5A and got 13.57A on Turbo, with a lumens output of 4036.5 at start, 3629.4 at 30 seconds.

This afternoon I got some UCL glass AR coated lenses from flashlightlens.com, put one in and charged up another VTC5A to see what changed… I’m now seeing 4288.35 lumens at start on the VTC5A, 3519 at start on the included Sofirn cell!

As you can see, simply by swapping out the FET and using larger wires, dropping in a nice AR coated lens, this little beauty is capable of 4000 out the front lumens! Just gotta love that!

I am told that these cells will also be sold on their site after the first of the year.

The pink color of the wrapper inside the Sofirn labeling matched my Samsung 30Q perfectly, but the 3 legged top plate looked different. There is a button top spot welded on, but it’s still easy to see there is a difference in the top plate. There is no laser marked branding on the pink wrapper. I cut the pink wrapper off too, nothing at all on the silver body of the light. So I’m not sure what the cell is. I know it works well though, up in the top 5 if not top 3.

I’ll say it again, I’m really impressed with Sofirn. I got the first C8F to review and it had XP-G3 emitters on aluminum, a protected cell came with it and there were issues with the emitters wanting more than the cell could provide. When I put a high drain cell in, fried an emitter! So I recommended they go to a DTP copper MCPCB with XP-L emitters and I rebuilt my sample in this way to show them what it would do… they listened! And promptly came out with a side switch with multiple groups and the required copper and emitter combination. It’s a real beauty, doesn’t need modification but lends itself well to a few tweaks.

For what it’s worth, my first sample the reflector fitted beautifully over an 32mm Noctigon, made for an easy upgrade.

Thanks, I know there are some folks that really work wonders with charting and graphing and CRI rendering scopes and X-Ray machines and maybe some Martian help with the beam or something, so I don’t try to go all Einstein on anybody. Other’s are better at it, so I just like to show how it’s made, what makes it good (or bad) and how it can be made better. Sometimes, lately, a mfgr just get’s it so right I don’t even mod it! I know, I said it. sad times at modder’s high.

Remember that this is a triple reflector light, like the Q8 is a quad reflector or like the BTU Shocker is a triple, only much smaller than that here in the C8 format. So, it’s better than building a C8 with a Ledil CUTE-3 Optic but of course less, much less, than a built C8 with throw in mind….

Hi everyone else and Dale, saw your last comments in my C8T review thread a while ago. Ya know, don't be jealous about what others do in their reviews, jealousy virtue is not. Everyone shares his/her two cents and so do you.

I am also going to receive one of these C8F torches hopefully in a few days. This seems like a nice bundle, even if the chosen cell wrap seems funnily misleading.

In the meantime, my kitchen lamp's central 5730 led array got ruined and is now undergoing a prolonged downtime while I receive a new 100 pack of Osram Duris E5 CRI85 5700K 5730 emitters and bases. In about two weeks everything should be at home but damn, Christmas is just around the corner…

I’ve seen around 40-50% increase in a light running at about 3A, so say a light has 900 lumens max… swap in an SST-40 and it’ll be in the 1400 lumens range. A bit on the blue-white side, but not bad and certainly acceptable if that increase is needed. (most of the time)

The idea of a triple with a reflector in the C8 format is enticing. I just might have to get me one. Do you know what the driver diameter is? Looks like 17mm in your photo. I will be replacing it with one of my own.

Went outside and took a little video with my smallest camera, probably talked too much but I guess y’all are used to that by now. It’s uploading to YouTube, will post it directly. (now, this is unedited so don’t expect too much)

Hey Dale, gave you taken a look at the switch pcb yet? I’m curious if it has pads for leds.

This looks like a good candidate for one of Lexels TA drivers.

A rear switch might be nice to avoid parasitic drain. Have you tested the drain yet? I guess the anodized rear threads mean you can give it a quarter turn to lock it out.

Concerning the stock driver, what do you think of the UI? Is it one click to turn on, press and hold to turn off? How does the memory work, do you have to press and hold 0.5 second to get it to come on in the last mode? Does a normal click on always start in low?

The switch pcb already has two led’s on it with resistors for each one.

A simple 1/8 turn of the tail cap gives lock out.

The UI has 4 groups, I like group 3 with press and hold for moon from off and double click from anywhere for Turbo.

Click on, press and hold for off, yes.

A short press and hold utilizes last mode memory, a short click starts in low 1, press and hold from off for moon, which does come on in the last mode memory then shifts down to moon. Not ideal, but easily dealt with.

Pretty complex light for such a new company, nice to see they’re into it and thinking.